Conventional search engines receive a search query from a user and execute a search against a global index. Such conventional search engines typically use one or more conventional methods for performing a search. For example, one known method, described in an article entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine,” by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, assigns a degree of importance to a document, such as a web page, based on the link structure of the web. The search results are often presented in a list format, comprising article identifiers and brief snippets about the documents in a web page that can be resized.
Often, the user has access to other information stored on the user's local machine or on other storage media accessible via a network that is relevant to the user's current contextual state. For example, if a user is working on a document regarding a particular subject, information about the subject may be stored on the user's hard drive or in a global index accessible to the user. In order to access this information, the user issues an explicit search query in an application, such as a web search page. The information is provided to the user as a result set. Thus, the user shifts focus from the document that the user is working on to perform the search.
In many cases, the user may be unaware or may not remember that information is available regarding a particular subject. In such a case, the user may not perform an explicit search and thus, will not have access to the potentially relevant information.